Natalie Bergman

27 | Lead singer, songwriter | Wild Belle, Chicago

Illustrations by Rafael Mantesso. Photos by Manuel Martinez.

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Why Natalieis someone to know

As lead singer of Wild Belle, a reggae-meets-Afrobeat-meets-pop band she started with her brother Elliot, this 27-year-old commands attention. That’s whether she’s taking the stage in front of 20,000 at a music festival, rubbing elbows with designers during New York Fashion Week or delighting her 13,600-plus Instagram followers with pictures of her colorful collages.

Q: “Dreamland” seems very personal. How does it feel to put yourself out there?

A: It’s definitely a release. It’s a vulnerable thing, but that’s what I like to do. I like to bare my soul and put it out there, raise it on a flagpole, wave it in the wind and see what happens.

Q: What inspired the song “Throw Down Your Guns,” for which you made a video with the Chicago Children’s Choir?

A: It was inspired by chaos in my own mind and my own inner turmoil. Then a few months ago, before we made the video, Elliot's neighbor got shot in the head. That was a disturbing thing to me. There’s really a messed up system, and we wanted to identify that we’re not anti-gun, but we are anti-violence and it’s come close to us. We wanted to make a peaceful protest and proclamation.

Q: You attended high school at Francis W. Parker in Lincoln Park, then studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston. How did classical music training turn into a reggae-pop band?

A: I studied Miles Davis and took a course on his life and musicianship. I had this amazing voice teacher who taught me about jazz music and how to use my voice as a jazz musician. That’s the root of my music. I learned how to play drums listening to the Fugees’ “The Score.” I would make drumbeats and layer them over electric guitar. I would make sounds using water in a kitchen bowl and bang it so it made a weird water sound. I think the inspiration I have for music from Zimbabwe or West or East Africa comes from just exploring. If you start with jazz, you find hip-hop, you find Africa, you find Jamaica, you find Brazil. My own music is a collection of all those sounds I’ve kept in my pocket and tried to recycle.

Q: If you weren’t in a band, what do you think you’d be doing?

A: I would love to do fashion design. To be honest, the first thing I would like to do outside of music is a show with my collages. I love collaging. I think I have an interesting eye for putting things on paper and reworking them or reorganizing images and making them fit into their own world. I love doing that.

Q: What’s your biggest mistake so far?

A: Being unkind to people. Kindness has taken me over the moon, and when you don’t respect people and you act entitled—that’s my biggest mistake, entitlement. I’ve burned some bridges. Actually I’ve burned a lot of bridges in my career because I was a punk-ass. Being punk is fun, but it’s not kind some of the time.

Q: And your biggest victory?

A: This record. I’m proud of the work I put into it. I poured everything into it: emotionally, financially, physically. And I’m proud of the place where I am right now.

Ari Bendersky

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Outtakes

“At this point in my life, I feel like I'm in this weird urgent state. I need to be in the studio, make more records, make more art. . . .I need to do more. Once I hit 27, I asked, 'What have I done with my life? What have I accomplished? How can I feel satisfied with what I'm doing?' It's hard to feel satisfied. It's a rotten thing to say. Being satisfied is overrated. I can't get there. I'll finish something and it looks beautiful, and I'll take a step back and it's wrong. Maybe that's why we keep going as artists. We need to do more.”